The Forty Files

Words Matter: What Brave New World Teaches Us About the Buffalo Bills

I was born and raised in Buffalo. I have defended this team through decades that tested every fan’s stamina. I have lived through droughts, jokes, crushing losses, and the unshakable belief that this year could be different.

The recent Buffalo Bills press conference was a wake-up call.

What is happening in Buffalo right now is not about roster moves or strategy. It is about a failure to communicate and how poorly chosen words can alienate a fanbase faster than any losing season ever could.

I recently read on the Buffalo Bills bio page that Terry Pegula and I share a love of A Brave New World. That detail stuck with me, because the lesson from that novel applies here in a striking way. When leadership prioritizes control and efficiency over meaning and truth, the system may run smoothly, but the people inside it start to disconnect.

In Huxley’s world, conflict is avoided at all costs. Language is flattened. Emotions are dulled. Everything is managed. Everyone is pacified. And yet something essential is lost: human connection.

That press conference felt exactly like that world.

Managed without being meaningful.
Careful without being caring.

For a fanbase like Buffalo’s—hardworking, loyal, and deeply invested—that kind of messaging does not reassure people. It alienates them.

Words matter.
How you craft them matters even more.

Fans did not need corporate deflection or vague reassurance. Every fan needed to be addressed. Spoken to like adults who love this team deeply and who have earned transparency through decades of loyalty. Instead, what we got was a confused, poorly handled presentation that failed to meet the emotional moment and created a bigger crisis than the decision itself.

That is the real danger Brave New World warns us about. Efficiency without meaning leads to quiet collapse.

The Buffalo Bills do not have a talent problem.
They do not have a leadership problem.
They have a communication problem, and left unchecked, that becomes a culture problem.

You can build excellence.
You can spend money.
You can build facilities.

But you cannot manufacture trust.

Fans do not want soma. They do not want to be pacified. They do not want carefully managed language designed to smooth things over. Fans want the messy to be made real. They want honesty, accountability, the full truth, and inspiration, even when it is uncomfortable.

As a teacher and a communicator, I watch this like a house of cards falling. I want to help because I understand how words shape culture, loyalty, and trust. This is bigger than football—it is about how an organization speaks to the people who have never stopped believing.

This from someone who understands that this is where the real work is. Not on the field. In the words.

Because Buffalo deserves better than empty language.
Better than managed silence.
Better than being told implicitly not to feel so much.

If Brave New World teaches us anything, it is this. When leaders choose control over connection, people do not revolt right away. They disengage. They grieve. They stop believing.

Buffalo fans still believe.
That is why this hurts.

And that is why the fix is not just football. It is language, humility, and the courage to speak honestly to the people who have never stopped showing up.

Words matter.
And right now, Buffalo is feeling every missing one.

Who knew that my love of literature and the Bills would collide?